Contracted emergency workers threaten strike

From the Detroit News:

Contracted physicians and physician assistants at Ascension St. John Emergency Department are threatening a strike in nine days if their union's demands for better staffing and work conditions are not met.

The threat, made in a Monday news release, came after the health care workers last summer formed a union, the Greater Detroit Association of Emergency Physicians, and have been in negotiations about their first-ever contract for roughly seven months. The union represents contracted doctors, advanced practice clinicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners in the Emergency Department at Ascension St. John, which sits on the border of Grosse Pointe and Detroit.

While the union's contract is with St. John Emergency Services in Detroit, the workers are employees of TeamHealth, a private, Tennessee-based physicians and hospital management company. An Ascension spokeswoman told The Detroit New last month that the emergency medicine physicians and other providers are not employed by the hospital, but their services are furnished through a contract with TeamHealth.